A mother
by Kage kioku aji tenshi
Summary: Summary: It's been years since the defeat of Valentine and Maryse has come to live with Luke and his pack, as far as the Clave is concerned she is a liaison to the Pack, they thought it a punishment when they sent her from the Institute but it was a relief for there are too many ghosts there for her.


Summary: It's been years since the defeat of Valentine and Maryse has come to live with Luke and his pack, as far as the Clave is concerned she is a leasionto the Pack, they thought it a punishment when they sent her from the Institute but it was a relief for there are too many ghosts there for her.

Au: Sebastian kills Max, Jace remains dead at Lake Lynn, Izzy is banished and disowned by Aldertree, no one knows what happened to her but Simon vanished as well and Alec, no one dares speak his name.

* * *

"Do you have children?"One of the young mothers asked Maryse as thehy sat in the living room talking about this or that.

"No." Maryse found her voice to answer after a moment of surprise.

"Have you ever had children?" A different mother asked as she helped her son climb on to a chair.

It was a Pack night, where the pack of werewolves would gather for the day and be together, reaffirming bonds and having dinner together later and dispite not being a werewolf Maryse was pack, had become so over the years.

Maryse froze, her heart stuttering. For a moment she had fogotten, forgotten that the baby she rocked in her arms did not belong to her, forgotten that many members of the pack were newly arrived in New York, that they did not know her story, her grief, her pains and sorrows.

She looked down at the baby in her arms, she was wrapped tightly in a light pink blanket and Maryse remembered how Izzy had screeched when anything pink neared her as opposed to little Max who had been soothed by the color.

It was almost heartbreaking when Maryse realized that she hardly remembered Alec's babyhood and then childhood. He'd been her first but there had been so much to do after defecting from the Circle, she did not even know what his first word had been though both Izzy's and Max's had been a lisping and delighted 'Alec'.

Oh, how she wondered how to answer that question, was she still a mother now that her children were gone? Lost to the war and prejudice.

Her little Maxwell dead before twelve because he was much too smart and learned of the spy within their ranks, killed for his discovery and there had been so much blood on Izzy's hands when Aldertree had discovered her over Max's body.

There had hardly even been a trial and Izzy...

Her sweet, confident daughter, de-runed, disowned and banished regardless of the many protests and lost among the mundanes, and Maryse could only hope and pray to the Angel that she was out there somewhere with the Lewis boy, living, laughing, even if Maryse was never again allowed to call her daughter.

Jace, her golden haired changeling child, the one she'd chosen and praised and wished her other children to emulate, he'd been taken from her by Valentine himself when Clary and Jace had so foolishly gone alone to confront the man at Lake Lynn and Clary had chosen her mother over Maryse's son.

And Alec, her oldest son, the one she'd cursed and, for a brief moment after he'd chosen Magnus Bane over their family, hated, her Alec had never been the same after Jace's death, after Bane had left him, broken up with him over a lie never uttered, a secret Robert should never have given Alec.

He'd been less than a ghost, following orders without protest, killing Demons as if somehow their deaths would return those he'd lost.

Maryse had never tried to comfort him, he'd stopped talking to her long before then, when she had made it obvious that chosing Magnus Bane had been the worst of his coming out.

But the moment that had truely broken Alec was the little gift that Aldertree had shoved into Alec's hands one day.

She still remembered what that man had sneered at Alec as he had watched him open the gift, 'A reminder, Mr. Lightwood, do not go against the Clave.'

And Maryse had watched her son's blank face fall apart in grief and devistaion, his body had stiffened, his grip on the gift had tightened and then just as quickly his entire body had relaxed and his expression returned to nothing but his eyes..., Maryse would never be able to forget that look in Alec's eyes.

There hadn't even been a chance to stop him before Aldertree was falling, his red blood splashing across Alec's face as the man choked on his own blood and Alec's blade found home in Raj's belly as he tried to stop Alec's exit.

But exit Alec did, a trail of bodies in his wake.

It was only through the video survalence that Maryse discovered what Aldertree had 'gifted' her son, and once she knew she could not fault Alec's reaction, for Alec had been given Magnus Bane's golden-green cat eyes and now the Clave had no hold upon her son.

Alec slaughtered his way through the heads of the Clave and when they would have elected like minded Nephilim, Alec killed them too. Maryse had found a list of Nephilim in her office and offered it to the Clave elect council, those chosen lived and they began changing how they treated Downworlders, oh, there had been protests and anger but opposition or threats had earned death at Alec's hands or his arrows, and Alec had held no mercy for Blood ad Robert had learned, dead by Alec's hands and a message written in his blood; "All are equal in deat, they should be equal in life as well.'

When Valentine's son tried to halt their progress Alec made hi regret it and after almost a year of sabotaging the man Alec had sent Valentine's son's head to the Clave Council with the message: 'There will be no more hatred for being born.'

And many Nephilim still lived in fear of harming a Downworlder, of being open to hating them. Many had found that Downworlders were just people trying to live with what they had been given.

But Maryse knew there was no reason to fear Alec's retribution.

She had been called to Magnus Bane's old appartment, still standing empty in some sort of Warlock Maurning Rite. Someone had broken in to it and with all of Magnus Bane's possessions sitting untouched it had been the Nephilim that had to take the call.

She'd entered carefully, her blade lit and ready, to find her son sitting in the darkness, a single candle illuminating his face.

He'd looked exhausted, broken, shoulders slumped, his head down, arms tight over his abdomen. When he had turned to hershe'd kept her shock silent if a bit visable on her face, at some point Alec had found time to peirce his ears and from each dangled Magnus Bane's eyes, it was strangly fitting for his appearance, all in leather, hard and battle ready but these were not a trophy but a reminder of loss.

Alec had leaned abck on the arm of the couch he'd sat on and closed his eyes, Maryse had feared disturbing him, had feared what he might have done had she tried to help him.

His eyes had opened and he looked at her, the candle casting shadows over his face.

'Do you think Warlock's go where Nephilim go when they die?' Alec had asked into the quiet.

Maryse hadn't known how to answer that and Alec hadn't waited.

'I hope they do, maybe..., maybe I can find him there.' Alec had trailed off into a whisper and Maryse had watched his body grow limp, his eyes drift closed and his chest still.

She only noticed how much blood was soaked into the couch cushions when she crept forward carefully to check Alec's pulse, finding none.

Knowing that he would not be permitted a proper Shadowhunter funeral, indeed knowing that there was no one left to mourn him but herself, Maryse had gathered everything she would need to give her son a funeral he deserved.

From Bane's closet she had found a single white silk bow-tie that she used to cover Alec's eyes, she crossed his arms over his chest with his Sereph blade in his right hand over his heart and laid him flat in Bane's bed. For herself, she had no clothing of white to change into, nor could she bring herself to leave, so from Bane's linen closet she pulled a white sheet and wrapped it around herself.

As she sat next to her son in the bed, her hand over his on his chest, she felt it was a poor excuse of a Shadowhunter Funeral, almost a mockery, but she spoke his name, 'Alexander Lightwood' and 'Ave atque vale' (Hail and Farewell) and 'Pulvis umbra sumus' (We are dust and Shadows) and as she carefully as she could she set fire to the bed and watched her last child burn and prayed that perhaps he would find Bane in the next life, perhaps the Angel would be kind to him in death as he was refused in life.

"Maryse?" The first mother questioned her, bringing her back to the present, her hand stroking the baby's cheek softly, eyes far away.

"You don't have to answer, I just thought, you're so good with her, you must be a mother but we have never met your children." There was curiosity in the second mother's eyes, in all their eyes.

"I was a mother once, a poor one to be quite honest." Maryse finally said, ignoring the protests, "But my children are dead and gone and I am no longer a mother."

Maryse carefully handed the baby back to her mother as she noticed Luke approach them.

"If you need the night, Maryse, you may retire early." He offered her, in the ten years she had lived with him she had never mentioned her children could never bring herself to and Clary, the few times she had encountered the girl after, had never spoken of them either. Clary had moved on quickly from Jace, marrying a boy from an old Shadowhunter family and Maryse had avoided both her and Jocelyn, if Maryse had thought to she would have blamed them but Maryse could not find it in her to blame any one person.

Sometimes she'd hear Izzy, max, or Jace mentioned, more often she would hear Bane's name in hushed voices, but none, Shadowhunter or Downworlder, dared to speak the name of her oldest. Only when Maryse was alone in the room Luke had let her keep for her work and when she needed to be alone after moving into his room, with the door locked and the silencig Runes triple checked, did she murmur her oldest child's name in remebrance and sorrow.

And she hoped that he had found Magnus Bane and wished she coould still call hersef a mother.

* * *

A/N: Okaym so, Alec got a little Dark there in the middle and I'm aware that you don't stop being a mother just because your children are dead but Maryse is grieving and having feelings and I'm sorry.

And Oh My Gods I don't know where this came from.


End file.
